Auroville - space age stuff??
Trip Start
Aug 24, 2008
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Trip End
Aug 01, 2009
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Auroville,
Tamil Nadu,
India
Saturday, February 7, 2009
Today being our last full day in Pondicherry, we are going to take a tuktuk out to a special project called Auroville. At the inauguration ceremony of Auroville in 1968, 124 countries and 23 Indian states placed a handful of soil from their homeland into a lotus shaped urn, in a symbolic gesture of human unity. The 1,700 people in some 90 settlements are working on a wide variety of projects including renewable energy, organic farming, environmental regeneration, handicrafts, small-scale industries, health care, education and so much more. The 40,000 local village inhabitants are provided with a source of employment, and Auroville helps them to improve their infrastructure, provides education and health care.
Auroville is the dream of "The Mother" who was born Mira Alfassa in France in 1878, and was later put in charge of the Sri Arobindo Ashram in Pondicherry. The town is still under construction and cannot be visited on short term. The place that we went to was the Matrimandir, a large sphere which is situated in the exact centre of the town containing the largest known crystal which measures 70 cm in diameter. The crystal is the centre of a marble hall which the Auroville residents use for meditation and special ceremonies. The town is divided into four zones, Cultural, International, Industrial and Residential which spiral outwards from the Matrimandir. It is still under construction, and even though we were at the centre we could only see a couple of gates along the road from Pondicherry to the Matrimandir,
that looked like they may be some sort of development. Auroville, according to its brochure is:
1. Auroville belongs to nobody in particular. Auroville belongs to humanity as a whole. But to live in Auroville one must be the willing servitor of the Divine Consciousness.
2. Auroville will be the place of an unending education, of constant progress, and a youth that never ages.
3. Auroville wants to be the bridge between the past and the future. Taking advantage of all discoveries from without and from within, Auroville will boldly spring towards future realisations.
4. Auroville will be a site of material and spiritual researches for a
living embodiment of an actual Human Unity.
Some things we were wondering are: who is the decision maker? What happens if someone breaks the law, who deals with this? Who is allowed to become a citizen, and who decides this? Is there law enforcement? Is health care free or is there a tax system to support social programs? It is a very interesting project and we wished we could have learned more. They readily accept travellers staying in the community, but you have to be able to commit to at least a week and be prepared to work with the people on their project.
